The world’s richest man, Elon Musk has deleted a tweet in which he alleged that US President Donald Trump was implicated in the unreleased Jeffrey Epstein files—signaling a possible de-escalation in the public fallout between the two powerful figures.
“Time to drop the really big bomb,” Musk wrote Thursday on X, sharing to his 220 million followers. “@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”
The comment came amid Musk’s multi-day criticism of the president’s new spending bill making its way through Congress.
Jeffrey Epstein’s former attorney, David Schoen, addressed the viral post. “I was hired to lead Jeffrey Epstein’s defense as his criminal lawyer nine days before he died,” Schoen wrote on X. “He sought my advice for months before that. I can say authoritatively, unequivocally, and definitively that he had no information to hurt President Trump. I specifically asked him.”
In February, the Department of Justice released over 100 pages of Epstein’s phone contacts and flight logs related to sex trafficking charges. The documents listed associations with figures like Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, and Donald Trump, who was known to have socialized with Epstein in the 1990s.
Trump and Epstein were photographed and videotaped at parties in that era. In a 2002 New York Magazine interview, Trump referred to Epstein as “a terrific guy” who “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges of soliciting sex from a minor and was sentenced to 18 months in prison as part of a controversial plea deal. Trump reportedly banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago in 2007 after an alleged incident involving a club member’s teenage daughter.
On the campaign trail in 2024, Trump said he would support the release of more Epstein-related files if elected president. “I never went to his island, fortunately, but a lot of people did,” he said at the time.
A source familiar with the Musk-Trump spat commented, “If Elon truly believed Trump was deeply involved with Epstein, why did he spend six months with him and publicly say he ‘loves him as much as a straight man can love a straight man’?”
Flight logs show Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet at least seven times between October 1993 and May 1994. These entries were already public as part of Ghislaine Maxwell’s 2021 trial.
A second version of Epstein’s “little black book” is currently being auctioned. According to the auction house, five names—including Trump’s—are highlighted in yellow, all belonging to “well-recognized financial and industrial figures.”
Internet speculation continues around which Epstein associates may have traveled to his Caribbean island, Little St. James, where many underage girls were allegedly abused. According to the Justice Department, Epstein exploited more than 250 girls across properties in New York, Florida, and elsewhere before his arrest in 2019.
He was later found dead in a Manhattan detention center, in what was ruled a suicide.
Musk, once a close Trump ally, resigned from his role at the Department of Government Efficiency just before reaching the 130-day threshold for his status as a special government employee. He had reportedly sought a conversation with the president after the online feud, but the White House confirmed that no call had been scheduled.
